Brive 23 



were imported, which had been procured at the expense of 

 72;Ooo hvxes (£3149); the price of covering a mare is only three 

 hvres to the groom; the owners are permitted to sell their colts 

 as they please, but if these came up to the standard height, the 

 king's officers have the preference, provided they give the price 

 offered by others. These horses are not saddled till six years 

 old. They pasture all day, but at night are confined on account 

 of wolves, which are so common as to be a gi-eat plague to the 

 people. A horse of six years old, a little more than four feet 

 six inches high, is sold for ^^70; and £15 has been offered for a 

 colt of one year old. PassUzarch; dine at Douzenac; between 

 which place and Brive meet the first maize, or Indian corn. 



The beauty of the country, through the 34 miles from St. 

 George ^ to Brive, is so various, and in every respect so striking 

 and interesting, that I shall attempt no particular description, 

 but observe in general, that I am much in doubt whether there 

 be an^lhing comparable to it either in England or Ireland. It 

 is not that a fine view breaks now and then upon the eye to 

 compensate the traveller for the dullness of a much longer 

 district ; but a quick succession of landscapes, many of which 

 v/ould be rendered famous in England by the resort of travellers 

 to view them. The country is all hill or valley; the hills are 

 very high, and would be called with us mountains, if waste and 

 covered with heath; but being cultivated to the very tops, their 

 magnitude is lessened to the eye. Their forms are various: 

 they swell in beautiful semi-globes; they project in abrupt 

 masses, which enclose deep glens: they expand into amphi- 

 theatres of cultivation that rise in gradation to the eye : in some 

 places tossed into a thousand inequalities of surface; in others 

 the eye reposes on scenes of the softest verdure. Add to this, 

 the rich robe with which nature's bounteous hand has dressed 

 the slopes with hanging woods of chestnut. And whether the 

 vales open their verdant bosoms, and admit the sun to illumine 

 the rivers in their comparative repose; or whether they be 

 closed in deep glens, that afford a passage with difficulty to the 

 water rolling over their rocky beds, and dazzling the eye with 

 the lustre of cascades ; in every case the features are interesting 

 and characteristic of the scenery. Some views of singular 

 beauty riveted us to the spots; that of the town of Uzarch, 

 covering a conical hill, rising in the hollow of an amphitheatre 

 of wood, and surrounded at its feet by a noble river, is unique. 

 Derry in Ireland has something of its form, but wants some of 



* St. Germain-les- Belles. 



